The Role of Memory in Italian American Women’s Writing

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the role of memory in Italian American women’s writing. Autobiography and memoir, given their characteristics of discontinuity and fragmentation, have proved to be a suitable literary genre for immigrants and marginalized subjects. This thesis presents an introductive Chapter in which all the “tools” used for this study are presented, focusing on the historical context, on the theme of identity, on the main notions of Memory Studies (testimony, trauma) and on Literary Theory. Through the analysis of the works taken into consideration (Rosa: The Life Of An Italian Immigrant, Umbertina, The Skin Between Us), this study has reached the conclusion that individual and collective memory have played a central role in Italian American women’s writing, with the double aim to heal one’s trauma and to overcome it, to make one’s life and memory an historical act.